Ulthwé march back to war, to escalation league and beyond!

[Magos Takatus]

Hi all! You've probably seen me bumping into things and generally being a nuisance about the forum but am your problem now!  I recently joined a local hobby store's Escalation league and so I decided to turn my attention away from My Adeptus Mechanicus, Space Marines, Orks and Imperial Knights to paint my old Eldar Army*. The reason they were left on the backburner for years upon years is simply because I found Eldar/Aeldari to be so intimidating to paint. I feel that they need to be painted as tidily as possible so I've dropped that baggage as part of that escalation league.

I have a small chunk of my Eldar army ready painted and I will try to update this as I go.

 

I will try to keep track of the battles as I play them, with the exception of two games I've already played.

 

The first game was a 500 point game verses Genestealer cults. Apparently the peerless Farseers of Ulthwé could not foresee one of my War Walkers getting sabotaged and it promptly exploded. My Guardians died before they got into effective range or were too weakened to inflict damage. It was a sound beating but I wasn't expecting to win with such little 9th edition experience. 

 

In the second game I fared even worse. My opponent brought in some Thousand Sons who assailed me with a withering barrage of mortal wounds, a great deal of which I managed to deflect due to Ulthwé's Craftworld ability. Sadly that didn't stop my guns from being woefully ineffective against the Terminators he brought down onto the central capture point. I managed to kill one Rubrik marine and wound a terminator, who healed up the next turn anyway. I was thoroughly tabled, though I was surprised at how many mortal wounds I managed to block due to rolling 5's.

 

I lost both games pretty convincingly, I am wondering where to go next. I have some old Rangers I intent to use but the Bulk of my Guardians will be riding jetbikes because footslogging Guardians just felt awful to play with. I should have spent more time on defensive abilities and more time trying to get Doom onto my Core models. I forgot that I could take two powers so I could have been casting fortune to keep the Guardians alive a bit longer. I also need to figure out Strands of Fate. It seems a bit of a faff and I'm not sure I was using it right when I remembered to use it.

 

I will add a second post that will contain the models I've painted so far (not including my 2nd edition Ulthwé army that looks ancient now)

 

*Plus a whole load of Jetbikes I recently bought, my pile of shame still grows! 

[Magos Takatus]

Here's  my collection of Avatars. I have the plastic version but so far it's still on the sprue.

[Magos Takatus]

Here's my most recent additions: 

[Magos Takatus]

[Magos Takatus]

As you can see, I had to streamline the bone painting recipe, I chose Papyrus Dipping Ink from Green Stuff World over an undercoat of Scale 75 Bone Charm. I painted Skeleton Horde Contrast into the recesses and it gave me a result halfway between the bone colour of modern Ulthwé and the Golden Yellow of their 2nd edition ancestors. I've got a load of Jetbikes and Howling Banshees on the painting table currently but my carer obligations have slowed down my progress considerably. Hopefully I can keep adding the models I have already painted for long enough that I'll be able to paint up the incomplete models.

[Xenith]

If the TS player brought Scarab terms in a 500pt game, the problem is definitely with them not you! 

 

Strands of fate is a game changer for Eldar, so make sure to get your head round it - that guaranteed hit, wound or save can win you games - especially for Ulthwé where everything gets a 6++ so you can save a wounding hit on a wraithlord or tank, for example. 

 

What was your 500pt list?

[TrawlingCleaner]

Magos, your scheme is absolutely gorgeous, fantastic work!

I'm definitely looking forward to seeing more

[Magos Takatus]

7 hours ago, Xenith said:

If the TS player brought Scarab terms in a 500pt game, the problem is definitely with them not you! 

 

Strands of fate is a game changer for Eldar, so make sure to get your head round it - that guaranteed hit, wound or save can win you games - especially for Ulthwé where everything gets a 6++ so you can save a wounding hit on a wraithlord or tank, for example. 

 

What was your 500pt list?

The TS plyer was a really nice guy but he have 5 termies, 5 rubrics, a fancy sorcerer and a lesser sorcerer of some kind with some thrall rule. A pretty formidable force!

 

My 500 point list wasn't exactly spectacular. One Farseer on bike, two single War Walkers armed with one Eldar Missile Launcher and one Starcannon each and two squads of 10 Guardians, one unit equipped with an EML platform. I understand that Guardians haven't been that effective for a long time but even then I was shocked by how easily they die, and how short a 12" range is. I'm more used to Skitarii Vanguard with their 18" range weapons. I forgot to pick a second power for my Farseer and I dearly wish I had picked up something defensive.

 

The rules of the league allow you to swap out a unit when each phase of the competition begins so my current list for the 750 point phase is:

Farseer Skyrunner (Doom, Fortune, Singing Spear, Fate Reader)

13 Guardian Defenders plus EML platform (when I run out of points I just dump a couple more mooks on the table)

5 Rangers

5 Fire Dragons +Exarch (Blazing Fury, Firepike)

1x3 War Walkers (EML + Starcannon)

 

I know there's a few issues with the list, namely that the Fire Dragons don't have a transport yet and the War Walkers have an iffy jack-of-all-trades loadout when I intend to run them with Bright Lances later in the league. 

 

Due to illness and having to care for my increasingly frail mother I'm pretty much cobbling together an army from what I have painted and trying to kick the can a bit further down the road until I can airbrush my jetbike canopies and bring my Windrunners to bear, which will hopefully give them more mobility.

 

I suppose I should show you my intended endpoint for context.

 

++ Battalion Detachment 0CP (Aeldari - Craftworlds) [101 PL, 12CP, 2,030pts] ++

+ Configuration +

Battle Size [12CP]: 3. Strike Force (101-200 Total PL / 1001-2000 Points) 

Craftworld Selection: Ulthwé: Foresight of the Damned

Detachment Command Cost

Game Type: 1. Eternal War

+ HQ +

Farseer Skyrunner [6 PL, 140pts]: 1. Guide, 2. Doom, 6. Impair Senses, Singing Spear, Warlord
. The Ghosthelm of Alishazier

Farseer Skyrunner [6 PL, 140pts]: 3. Fortune, 5. Will of Asuryan, Singing Spear

+ Troops +

Guardian Defenders [4 PL, 90pts]
. 10x Guardian Defender: 10x Plasma Grenades, 10x Shuriken Catapult

Guardian Defenders [4 PL, 90pts]
. 10x Guardian Defender: 10x Plasma Grenades, 10x Shuriken Catapult

Rangers [4 PL, 65pts]
. 5x Ranger: 5x Ranger Long Rifle, 5x Shuriken Pistol

+ Elites +

Fire Dragons [6 PL, 120pts]
. 4x Fire Dragon: 4x Dragon Fusion Gun
. Fire Dragon Exarch: Dragon Fusion Gun

Warlock Skyrunners [5 PL, 135pts]: 1. Conceal/Reveal
. Warlock Skyrunner: Singing Spear
. Warlock Skyrunner: Singing Spear
. Warlock Skyrunner: Singing Spear

+ Fast Attack +

Vypers [9 PL, 150pts]
. 3x Vyper w/ Starcannon: 3x Starcannon, 3x Twin Shuriken Catapult

Windriders [8 PL, 180pts]
. 6x Windrider - Scatter Laser: 6x Scatter Laser

Windriders [8 PL, 180pts]
. 6x Windrider - Scatter Laser: 6x Scatter Laser

+ Heavy Support +

Fire Prism [9 PL, 165pts]: Twin Shuriken Catapult

Fire Prism [9 PL, 165pts]: Twin Shuriken Catapult

War Walkers [15 PL, 255pts]
. War Walker: 2x Bright Lance
. War Walker: 2x Bright Lance
. War Walker: 2x Bright Lance

+ Dedicated Transport +

Wave Serpent [8 PL, 155pts]: Star Engines, Twin Shuriken Cannon, Twin Shuriken Catapult

++ Total: [101 PL, 12CP, 2,030pts] ++

Created with BattleScribe

 

The list is now about 30 points over so I need to make some alterations anyway. My War Walkers are magnetised so that I can arm them with 2 Bright Lance each or one of each other weapon option, I am hoping Vypers  will be easy to magnetise too. The Jetbikes have magnets so perhaps I can replace the Scatter Lasers on one or both units for something else. I just liked the idea of having standoff range with the Scatter Lasers and the mobility to relocate later in the game. I do have a few units in my pile of shame I might be able to substitute depending on how quick they would be to paint. I've also noticed the Exarch is missing his Firepike and I don't want to break WYSIWYG if I can help it.

Edited February 8, 2023 by Magos Takatus
Forgot punctuation

[Karhedron]

On 2/8/2023 at 4:37 PM, Magos Takatus said:

My 500 point list wasn't exactly spectacular. One Farseer on bike, two single War Walkers armed with one Eldar Missile Launcher and one Starcannon each and two squads of 10 Guardians, one unit equipped with an EML platform. I understand that Guardians haven't been that effective for a long time but even then I was shocked by how easily they die, and how short a 12" range is. I'm more used to Skitarii Vanguard with their 18" range weapons.

 

As the classic "basic infantry" of craftworld armies, I agree, Guardians are quite shockingly bad. They are too expensive to spam, too short-ranged to camp on backfield Objectives and too fragile to contest midfield Objectives. I tend to field Rangers for mandatory Troops.

 

For what it is worth, Shuricats have been boosted slightly to 18" range in this edition. Not enough to greatly help but at least on par with Skitarii Vanguard.

 

One way to use Guardians as a Deep Striking bomb. Take a full 20-man squad with 2 platforms (probably shuricannon but any choice can work). Deep Strike using the Webway Stratagem and when they appear, buff them with everything you can. DISCIPLINE OF THE BLACK GUARDIANS, Doom Autarch reroll and BLADESTORM. This will dump a ton of dice onto any target with 6s exploding and hitting at AP-3. This will make a mess of pretty much any target. Even a Knight will take significant damage and anything T7 or below will be badly mauled. I just dislike dumping this level of support onto a suicide squad but it is a cost-effective use.

 

Personally I have switched to running an Arks of Omen detachment. I usually run 1 squad of Rangers and run my Guardians as Corsair Voidreavers with Shuriken Rifles. These have several advantages over Guardians in that they can be run in 5-man squads if you want cheap ObjSec or Action monkeys. The shuriken rifles have 24" range which makes it a bit easier to keep them out of harm's way. They cannot fulfil mandatory Troop slots but in Arks of Omen, you can make Fast Attack (or any other slot) your mandatories and then take Corsairs freely.

[Magos Takatus]

I appreciate the advice. Making The foot Guardians work sounds like a good idea since I do have quite a few (I don't have enough plastic heavy weapon platforms to go round sadly). I hadn't really considered Corsairs but they sound more like how 2nd edition Guardians worked rather than the bizarre unit we have now. No wonder the Eldar are a dying race if they use WW1 tactics with their most vulnerable troops. 

 

I understand that Warlock Skyrunners aren't that sensible a unit and I think footslogging Warlocks are better (More point efficient and higher squad limit makes double-casting easier?), but I've bought the models and now the idea of a Seer Council swooping from the sky to impale something big with Singing Spears is stuck in my head so I want to make it happen. 

[Karhedron]

On 2/12/2023 at 8:01 PM, Magos Takatus said:

I hadn't really considered Corsairs but they sound more like how 2nd edition Guardians worked rather than the bizarre unit we have now.

 

That has just reminded me that melee Corsairs are actually a good choice too and considerably better than Storm Guardians. A 10 point Corsair comes with a free power sword and has 2A. A Storm Guardian with power sword costs 13 points and only has 1 attack! The Corsair options of Blaster and Shredder are both 18" range compared to the 12" range of the flamer and fusion gun.

 

Eldar Troops are never going to be powerhouses in melee but at least Corsairs can bully weak 1W units like IG, Tau or even basic SoBs. Stor Guardians hit like wet noodles.

[Magos Takatus]

I just went out to our games club and managed to lose a couple more games convincingly. 

I played my final 500 point game against some Black Templars and a 750 point practice against a friend of mine. 

 

My friend has a Nurgle daemon  army and I got utterly annihilated, failing to kill a single model. I faced a Great Unclean one, a T8 Daemon I am unfamiliar with that had an ability to swallow models whole, two Beasts of Nurgle and a unit of Plaguebearers that he didn't even need to deploy. With almost his whole army being T6, 8 and 9 my Guardians and Rangers were ineffective and my War Walkers and Farseer and Fire Dragons rolled abysmally. I think it was a bad matchup, I made a ton of mistakes but with what I brought to the table I'm not sure I could have done much other than use the Stratagem that allows redeployment (Phantasm I think?) to have moved my Fire Dragons to the other flank and ignored the GUO entirely.

 

The Black Templar game also resulted in being tabled but I was able to resist for at least a while. I wiped out a squad of Eliminators before they destroyed my War Walkers and managed to chew through some Aggressors and Sword Brethren before I was eventually caught between the two units. I was surprised that he had two units of Intercessors with Stalker Bolters but he was apparently given them so the army was a lot shootier than I expected for a Black Templar army. I enjoyed the game but I felt the Guardians really let me down again, I just don't seem to be able to get enough into range without immediate reprisals when they inevitably fail to destroy their target.  I'm not too worried about it though, I know Eldar are traditionally an army that punishes mistakes, and I am making a lot of mistakes at this stage!

 

Hopefully I can turn this gunline into something a bit more mobile if I get my backside in gear and actually resume painting.

[Karhedron]

GUOs are one of the toughest models in the game. Bringing one to a 500 point game is definitely not a friendly thing to do. 

[Magos Takatus]

15 minutes ago, Karhedron said:

 

That has just reminded me that melee Corsairs are actually a good choice too and considerably better than Storm Guardians. A 10 point Corsair comes with a free power sword and has 2A. A Storm Guardian with power sword costs 13 points and only has 1 attack! The Corsair options of Blaster and Shredder are both 18" range compared to the 12" range of the flamer and fusion gun.

 

Eldar Troops are never going to be powerhouses in melee but at least Corsairs can bully weak 1W units like IG, Tau or even basic SoBs. Stor Guardians hit like wet noodles.

I must admit that I forgot Storm Guardians were a thing! It sounds like that is probably for the best.  I've got my completed Jain Zar and my squads of Howling Banshees isn't that far behind. Those Corsair models are pretty nice though, I have to admit.

1 hour ago, Karhedron said:

GUOs are one of the toughest models in the game. Bringing one to a 500 point game is definitely not a friendly thing to do. 

Sorry, I wasn't clear, that was the 750 point game, but still, a pretty brutal model to face with the small force I had.

[Magos Takatus]

I got persuaded to add a bit more spice to my 750 point army for tomorrow's games. Adding an Avatar of Khaine to my 2000 point list seems reasonable but a 750 point list featuring this monster might be too much. Having received a swift tabling in each game I have played so far I think swapping out a few chaff units and benching my War Walkers might be worth it. I'll have gone from an ineffective gunline into a force with a model that can hopefully project some threat across the board. I've already fought Thousand Son's Terminators and a Genestealer Patriarch so perhaps I'll make my opponents sweat this time. I'm still working on my Windrider Jetbikes to see if they can help fill out my 1000 point games with some mobility.

[Magos Takatus]

I played a game last night against Necrons. The game was very close but I seized my first win. The other player was fairly inexperienced like myself and his army was a lot more aggressive than I expected. 

 

Here's my force on the table before the game. My opponent:

 

 

The battle was brutal. The only surviving models were my Avatar on 2 wounds after the Stalker exploded in his face and a few Rangers cowering behind a spore chimney. I was expecting Necrons to be shooty so when I saw Lychguard and Skorpekh destroyers right in my face turn one I had to throw my Avatar into combat. He cleaved his way through the Chronomancer and Destroyers and after soaking up the charge from the Lychguard he wiped them out. The Warriors sneaked around the side and wiped out nine out of ten of my Guardians (Who actually got to do something, chewing up a few Skorpekhs before the Avatar charged. The Warriors then charged my Fire Dragons who managed to survive a few turns until getting wiped out. My War Walker fought a losing battle against the Triarch Stalker, it's Scatter Lasers scattering off the machine's armour. At some point in this my Farseer gunned his jetbike and charged the Stalker, trying to prevent my Avatar being shot now he was in the open. My Avatar swung round and layed into the Warriors, who tarpitted him excellently for several turns. My Farseer realised to his horror that the Triarch Stalker wasn't useless in combat and almost killed him outright. He did the best thing he could possibly do and ran away, taking 2 mortal wounds for his trouble. The Stalker then split fire and wiped out my War Walker and the last of my Guardians, killed my Farseer and  charged my Avatar, who eventually killed him. It was a close fought game so I didn't feel bad about the game, the Triarch Stalker and the Warriors certainly pulling their weight.

 

I am looking forward to my next game but I still have no idea what I will cram into my 1000 point list. I'd best hurry up painting!

[Xenith]

You've had some tough, but hopefully fun games! I think the Avatar in 1000 is ok, seeing what you;ve been up against, but it can suck up so many points it leaves you with no much else to do missions with. Necrons can be supririsngly combatty, and the stalker has a mean gun - sounds like you need some more long ranged anti tank to damage things before they get too close. 

[Magos Takatus]

Once we are in 1000 points I will have to see if I can squeeze my War Walkers back in. Hopefully if I can bring six Bright Lances to bear I have a better chance of winning such sparring matches. I haven't even opened up Battlescribe to explore my options for 1000 points. I really need to restart my painting. I've been dragged into EVE Online recently and I should keep an eye on the league at all times with the speed that I tend to paint.

 

This month there will be bonus points for deploying fast attack units and I just happen to be finishing off my jetbikes so that's helpful. This month we will be introducing secondary objectives which I'm not looking forward to, but that's mainly because of bad experiences with my Adeptus Mechanicus. The secondaries in their codex felt pretty dreadful and too many of the secondaries in the book led me to send perfectly good units on suicide missions. Here's hoping the Craftworlds are a bit more flexible in that regard. Hopefully if I keep the bikes safe for most of the game I will be able to complete some movement-based objectives.

[Urkh]

Your minis are absolutely to die for! Good luck with your league!

[Magos Takatus]

Thanks for the support! I'll try to keep up to date with events as the unfold :)

[Magos Takatus]

Yes! I finally finished the first unit of Jetbikes. I've been fighting poor motivation and a relapse back into EVE Online but I got there.

 

I'd like to do some freehand on the front of the bikes but right now I can't be bothered. They seem a bit dusty because I've taken so long to get them done, I will have to clean them very carefully before I spray them with varnish.

 

 

My Farseer no longer looks like a fool flying around by himself. I am hoping he can sneak into some Linebreaker points since I now have some mobility and firepower in my army. My anti-tank is still going to be inconsistent until I have a more reliable delivery platform. I am currently in Blender trying to design some 80mm bases for my grav tanks. That will provide more stability to my tanks and I will be able to put magnets into the base like I have with the jetbikes. I will be using 10mm acrylic rod to stick the tanks to the bases because those 2nd edition era flying base connections to the Falcon chassis underside are absolutely dreadful and I want a good alternative.

 

My rival for this month isn't able to attend tomorrow so I will be testing this little force in a practice game first. Next in the project will be half of Jetbike squad two and a Fire Prism. Next month I will finally be deploying my War Walkers at full strength. Hopefully six Bright Lances will be able to force some heavier enemy assets to keep their heads down. 

[Magos Takatus]

Last night's game was against a T'au army firing squad. The game was a complete disaster for me. I lost the first turn, my opponents Devilfish glided forward and disgorged their Fire Warriors and Pathfinders. The Pathfinders utterly deleted my bikes with a withering hail of Ion fire, immediately cementing the newly painted model rule. At the end of the first turn I had lost my Guardians, Jetbikes, Farseer and my Rangers. There was no coming back from that encounter.

 

Noteworthy moments for my army included my Fire Dragons finally doing something in the league! . They used their Exarch power to split fire, auto-wound melting a Devilfish (which exploded) and killing two Stealth Suits. The War Walker was once again useless, opening fire on the Fire Warriors with twelve Scatter Laser shots and killing one Fire Warrior.  The Avatar damaged the other Devilfish with a well-aimed throw of the Wailing Doom before charging and slaying the last Stealth Suit. He was later charged by the final Devilfish, which he quickly dispatched (I am not sure why he did this, I was joking it was mainly out of pity). He also managed to reduce the enemy commander to a single wound in melee, failing to secure me Slay the Warlord. In the end the Avatar died out of combat, surrounded on four sides.

 

My main takeaway from the game is that the club needs more line-of-sight blocking terrain. I had a single wall to hide behind and a couple of rather weedy barricades. Once I have successfully printed the bases for my tanks I will look into printing some terrain to donate to the club. There was a second game with a similar result with Sisters getting deleted by Admech due to lack of cover so it is a known problem.

 

Saltiness aside I had a fun time, after such a disastrous first turn I could only laugh at the result. It was unusual for me to see a Tau army without Crisis suits so it looks like mechanised infantry Tau might be back. My opponent played well and was a nice guy. I'll have to give him a rematch further down the line when I am better prepared.

 

[Magos Takatus]

Just a quick update: I hate the 2nd edition era clear flying stems on my vehicles. They are brittle and unstable. I am going for something a little larger and a lot sturdier.

 

 

 

 

[Magos Takatus]

I just came back from my other practice game against the Sisters of Battle. Sadly the pictures I took today were rather poor but though I lost I believe I at least held my own for a while rather than just getting blown off the board like a leafblower attacked me. 

 

I got a good start this time, my bikes shredding a squad of Zephyrim turn one and securing the secondary objective for me (First Strike, something like that?). They had a change of heart when an angry Mortifier ran out from behind a shipping container and started whacking away at them. They withdrew back to my deployment zone and spent the rest of the game on the fringes shooting ineffective Scatter Laser fire into a squad of Shield-wielding ladies (Celestian variants?). They survived everything I threw at them, well.... one of them did. She refused to lay down and die, passing a truly shocking amount of armour saves.

 

My Avatar got angry and helped to open up a Rhino (Finished off by my Guardian squad of all things!) He then decided he didn't like Sister Repentia very much and turned them into so much overcooked spaghetti. My opponent's Nundams ran onto the board, smashed my Avatar in the kneecaps and left just as soon as they arrived, my Avatar bracketed into the middle wound bracket. He eventually died and I failed to save enough CP to run the Avatar's stratagem (to fight on death I think?).

 

I killed the Canoness at some point during the game, my brain seems to have forgotten the specifics, but that netted me Slay the Warlord. I also sent my Farseer into the enemy deployment zone accompanied by the Windriders on the other flank to get the Linebreaker Secondary. My Farseer proceeded to roll an 11 for the manifestation of a Smite, one-shotting a random character I wasn't familiar with with a total of 5 wounds. I lost out when a Seraphim squad sneaked onto the board behind my lines and caused absolute chaos. They roasted my Rangers (who actually applied some mortal wounds to the Celestians shield ladies earlier in the game). The Seraphim then jumped in to a fight with the War Walker guarding my home objective and denying my scoring there for about 2 turns while the Guardian inside found the riverdance setting and proceeding to pound them into the ground, too little and too late. 

 

Over all I really enjoyed the game, unlike last game against the T'au where I just took off my models in droves. The extra terrain I put down made the game look a bit nicer as well as  give us places to hide models. 

 

I couldn't remember the whole flow of the game so I've just found it easier to pick out unit-by-unit. I'll have to bail out of this report, I'm tired to the point that my sentences are trailing off and not relevant to the battle report so I'd best cut this short. What I'm taking away from this is that my secondary objectives are all doing better, but I need to find ways to keep pressure on the primary objectives.

[Magos Takatus]

I had my league game on Wednesday night and unfortunately have to report another loss. I was playing against Grey Knights and for the second time in the league got overpowered in the psychic phase. I have also realised I am a muppet for two reasons: firstly I forgot to take any photographs this time and the league hasn't posted any photos of Wednesday and more crucially, I forgot the Avatar had the rule that halves incoming wounds so he might have survived another turn had I been on the ball.

 

I managed to get the first turn in this game and  tried to be aggressive and advance onto the central point. My Avatar stomped forward shadowed by my bikers and the Farseer. My Fire Dragons tried to advance into cover but they clearly skipped leg day and were left out into the open. My Rangers reached out and touched a Grey Knight squad across the table and they took some casualties but I failed to wipe out anything, failing to get my First Strike secondary. My opponent's turn saw my Fire Dragons unit shot to ribbons by heavy weapons fire (Psylencers? Something like that). My Exarch wasn't going down easily though, tanking an ungodly number of Storm Bolter shots before he was eventually brought low.

My next turn saw my Bikes take revenge on the heavy-weapon toting Knights, wiping them out with 36 scatter laser shots. My Avatar strode onto the central objective in a rather bold display of aggression for me. He crunched his way through the second power armoured squad, though he took quite a bit of damage to get through them.

 

This is where the game got a bit strange. Both of my opponent's Dreadknights were zoned out from teleporting into my backlines so they teleported either side of my Avatar and his two Terminator squads and Warlord closed in on the war god. Unfortunately almost every charge he rolled failed and his army was left staring awkwardly at Khaine's angry shard. One of his Terminator squads made it into combat and both sides traded blows. My Ulthwé army rules were really coming into play, my Avatar blocking mortal wounds left and right, but he was still taking damage and it was clear he wasn't going to escape multiple charges next turn.

 

My Rangers fired fired of a volley of fire at the Dreadknight bearing down on the Avatar, causing about three mortal wounds in another surprisingly effective shooting phase. My bikes continued to pour Scatter Laser fire into the other Dreadnight, who was bearing down on them. Again, Scatter laser fire finally proving to be useful in my games, stripping wounds through sheet rate of fire.

 

Somewhere here my recollection of the game starts to get a bit hazy but my Avatar was charged by the second terminator squad and the Dreadknight, who proceeded to smash the Avatar to his knees. Before he collapsed for good he hefted the Wailing Doom and ran the Dreadknight through, leaving the war machine on a single wound. This freed up a Terminator squad to return to his home objective and his Dreadknight to teleport over to assist the other walker. My bikes got charged by the healthier Dreadknight and were forced to fall back to screen my Guardians and my Farseer but they eventually got charged again and routed. My Rangers, incensed by the death of the Avatar lined up five red dots on the crippled Dreadknight, the War machine collapsing with a single hole through the pilot's head. Build a war machine with a cockpit next time!

 

The rest of the game consisted of the surviving Dreadknight mopping up my Guardians and the riverdancing War Walker, who had been taunting it most of the game with Scatter Laser fire. By the end of the game the score was 30-38 against me. If the game had continued I would have been wiped out in short order but with my super-aggressive Avatar play I managed to keep control of the primary objectives for a reasonable chunk of the game but I failed to lay down a First Strike, the enemy Warlord didn't even get engaged so I failed Slay the Warlord and Linebreaker was far out of my reach. 

 

It was an enjoyable game and with Farseer-like precision I predicted that I would struggle against all the the Dreadknights and Terminator armour, but it was far better than my earlier games now I have a few units that have some offensive power available to me. My Ulthwé are doing far better since I shelved my Guardian Defenders for some Windriders.

 

I've not got any model painting to report apart from some undercoated Windriders because I've been faffing about with some ruin terrain.